Archive | July 22nd, 2018

NOVANEWS

[ Editor’s Note: This story is not something all of us did not already know. The only story left to tell is why corporate media rolls over on not reporting the countries that have backed the terror proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and why the UN has not moved to amend the charter to throw out all those involved in terrorism, or maybe just “observer status”.

It is the story of our time and instead of the perfect storm that is should generate, what we have is a perfect stand down. Nobody running for president would have taken this on, including Bernie. He would have carried the Liberal banner, but supported Israel terrorism in the region by not saying a word about it.

Mass media did not tie the current Gaza turkey shoot in with Israel needing to present a new threat that it was under. It dug out this fantasy of the Gazans charging through the fence to invade Israel so they had to be mowed down in self defense.

Uri Avnery sliced that to ribbons in his last article that we posted. If Jews are ever treated like this in the future, their protests will be met with chants of “Remember Gaza”. If there was ever a county that should be sanctioned, it is Israel… Jim W. Dean ]

FSA were the usual regime change chums that would be discarded if they have won

– First published … July 22, 2018 –

On July 22, four senior commanders of the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) in southern Syria run away to Israel, according to the Syrian pro-government news outlet Damascus Now.

Syrian opposition activists identified the four commanders as “Moaz Nassar,” the leader of the Golan Knights Brigade, “Ahmed al-Nahs,” a commander in the Saif al-Sham Brigades, “Alaa al-Halaki,” the leader of the al-Ababil Army and “Abu Rateb Nassar,” a commander in the Golan Knights Brigade.

Over the last few years, several sources have accused the Golan Knights Brigade, the Saif al-Sham Brigades and the al-Ababil Army of cooperating with the Israeli military and intelligence.

The four FSA commanders were likely evacuated by the Israeli intelligence to prevent the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies from capturing them. This suggests that the commanders pose some sensetive information about the situation in southern Syria and the operations of the Israeli intelligence there.

NOVANEWS

Editor’s note: The lucky kids get candy or, more often potato chips (crisps for you Limey’s among us). Some kids get a shovel in the head and others a dose of chlorine bleach in the face.

Then they are paraded in front of the cameras, including Reuters and al Jazeera and it all goes to Donald Trump, the one man audience that launched a thousand dead kids

The culprits? Yes, we are talking George Clooney’s White Helmets. From Pravda:

The Israeli military evacuated the creative wing of terrorists fighting in Syria. White Helmets are known for their fake reports about chemical attacks in the war-torn country, but now White Helmets are safe, spokesman for Israel’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Emmanuel Nachshon, happily said.

Needless to say, the United States was the first country to welcome Israel’s initiative. In fact, it was the USA that requested the evacuation of “creative terrorists” from Syria. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the lives of members of White Helmets were in danger, so he allowed them to travel through Israel to a third country as a “humanitarian gesture.”

One is left to wonder about the reaction of those, who lost their loved ones because of the attacks conducted by representatives of such humanitarian organizations, who bomb buses, synagogues and stab people in broad daylight.

White Helmets will now be able to please other countries with their videos too. The Israeli administration may not even seem to bother much about the number of makeshift bombs and missiles that fall in residential quarters of Israeli towns. The Israeli prime minister may also suffer from the shortage of chlorine in daily news reports.

The USA, Canada, France and a number of other European states asked to save their protégés. Of course, officials with the Israeli leadership know whom they are evacuating.

Perhaps, the Israelis concluded a “very good deal” with someone. They know what consequences of dealing with terrorists may be. Anyone can come now to Israel under the guise of virtual humanists.

Russia may not agree with Israel in its approach to the definition of terrorist organizations. Israel may consider certain groups as terrorist organizations, but Russia may disagree. In the past, however, Israel used to consider terrorists in the Northern Caucasus and their guests from Arab countries as “rebels.” In other words, those terrorists were freedom fighters for Israel, even though they had to behead people on the way to future prosperity.

In the context of the above-mentioned humanitarian gesture, assumptions of Israel’s participation in the training of Syrian terrorists looks different. White Helmets may take their “show” to Jordan and then to the streets of European cities. It seems that Israel is known what it is doing. Israel’s compassion for terrorists may reduce the level of sympathy to the country should tragic news come from Israel again. Of course, we never want any tragedy to happen anywhere, but Israel’s humanism smells blood, TNT and chlorine.

NOVANEWS

The Syrian flag is hoisted over the town of Naseeb as the Syrian government opens up the Naseeb Crossing for business.

The MSM is eating crow. The New York Times, now having promoted a war of terrorism on the Syrian people, must taste the humble pie all losers eventually sit down to devour. Grudgingly, the WP and the WSJ have predicted the downfall of the terrorist campaign which they enthusiastically championed with orotund analyses, reports and editorials for the last seven years only to find themselves in a swamp of lies, half-truths and propaganda. Without any doubt, this is the lowest point to which the Western Media has reached.

The Der’ah campaign is almost over. The Syrian Army and its allies have liberated almost 90% of the province with only some pockets of terrorism left in barren, rugged, cave-pocked areas far away from population centers. Agreements to evacuate whole towns were reached on July 11, 2018 liberating Der’ah Al-Balad. On July 12, 2018, the flag of the republic was raised over the city. Other areas once infested with these foreign-supported cockroaches like Dam Road, the Naaziheen Camp, Sijna, Al-Manshiyya Quarter, Gharz and the Silos Area were all liberated with backround cheers of the citizens – embracing our soldiers and showering them with flowers and rose petal water.

Al-Muzayreeb in northwest Der’ah Province was liberated along with Inkhil and Kafr Shams Town. Now, a new agreement to depart Nawaa has been reached thanks to Russia which spared the people of that town untold hardship. Just yesterday, the last of 20 buses carrying vermin who did not accept the Syrian Army’s terms departed for Idlib where they will await certain death.

Of particular interest is the fact that the West has shown uncommon interest in the lives of local people – people like the terrorist group called the White Helmets. If you really believe that the British and Americans colluded to convince the Zionist Apartheid State and the Jordanians to airlift the poor, helpless and vulnerable terrorists to safety in Jordan, you might also believe that eskimos cultivate mango trees in the Yukon. The true reason, I am told by my sources, is that there were 2,200 special ops and intelligence officers who were trapped at the border with the White Helmets and who were under threat of being captured or killed by the Syrian Army. Forgetting the wealth of embarrassment this would have caused the slimy Brits and their cheap Gulf allies, the MOC in Amman ordered their spooks flown out at any cost and, if possible, take out some White Helmets with them.

Instead, only 400 or less White Helmets were provided with seats on the Zionist helicopters. Another 600 and their families remain trapped at the border where they will either be killed by ISIS nearby or by our troops. The scene, I am told, was like the last day of the Vietnam evacuation in April of 1975 with people struggling to get on the helicopters.

Of the 2,200 foreign spies and the special ops rodents, 1100 were from Gulf States like Qatar, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. They are now in Amman awaiting repatriation.

On the Golan, the SAA and the RuAF have been targeting ISIS at Tal Jammoo’ in the Yarmouk River basin. ISIS rats know their fate if captured, and, by and large, they prefer martyrdom. When the Syrian Army liberates Tal Jammoo’, you can be assured every ISIS vulture has been liquidated. Tal Jammoo’ is a very important and strategic location providing advantageous surveillance capabilities for the SAA. That is why the Zionist Settler State is giving ISIS unlimited assistance in persevering against a vast and focused onslaught. Once this site is rodent-free, all the others in Qunaytra will fall like dominoes.

NOVANEWS

President Donald Trump in May announced his decision to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Following weekend reporting that key members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet are leading a campaign to “foment unrest” in Iran, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s warning that a conflict between the two countries “would be the mother of all wars,” Trump turned to Twitter late Sunday with a message for Rouhani:

“Trump’s tweet chastised Iran for the very language Trump employed in his tweet,” observed Peace Action executive director Jon Rainwater. “Every peace-loving person in the U.S. needs to press the president to tone down his rhetoric and rethink this march to war.”

“The administration is making clear that military action is very much on the table.”
—Jon Rainwater, Peace ActionIn a televised speech from Iran’s capital, Tehran, on Sunday, Rouhani had warned Trump that the United States cannot block Iran from exporting crude oil. “Do not play with the lion’s tail or else you will regret it,” he declared. “Peace with Iran would be the mother of all peace and war with Iran would be the mother of all wars.”

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised the Trump administration’s “tough” threats toward Iran, European and Iranian leaders have been trying to salvage the Iran nuclear deal. Trump announced in May that he would ditch the agreement and reimpose sanctions, to which National Iranian American Council (NIAC) president Trita Parsi responded, “this is how the Iran war started.”

On Saturday Reutersreported that Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have “launched an offensive of speeches and online communications meant to foment unrest and help pressure Iran to end its nuclear program and its support of militant groups,” which is supposed to “work in concert with [Trump’s] push to economically throttle Iran by re-imposing tough sanctions.”

“This is not an administration that is pursuing a policy of actually trying to find a new way to the negotiating table or striking a new deal.”
—Trita Parsi, NIAC

At an event in Los Angeles on Sunday, Pompeo delivered a speech to a group of Iranian Americans entitled “Supporting Iranian Voices.” Pompeo reportedly claimed the nation’s leadership “resembles the Mafia more than a government” and called Iran’s clerics “hypocritical holy men.”

“In a single day the Trump administration has firmly steered the U.S. onto a path of confrontation with Iran,” remarked Rainwater. “The whole administration appears to be working in lock step to lay the groundwork for a military confrontation. By lodging personal attacks against Iran’s supreme leader, making demands that no one believes Iran can fulfill, and hinting at regime change, the administration is making clear that military action is very much on the table.”

Parsi appeared on Democracy Now! Monday morning to discuss the ramped up rhetoric, including the president “essentially threatening war over Twitter.”

“Without a doubt, this is not an administration that is pursuing a policy of actually trying to find a new way to the negotiating table or striking a new deal. Everything they’re doing right now is only compatible with a policy of confrontation,” Parsi concluded. “Whether that confrontation will take place through a direct military confrontation, or whether it will be the Trump administration continuing and intensifying their efforts to destabilize Iran—or, as Reuters reported over the weekend, to foment unrest in Iran—remains to be seen.”

Watch:

Posted in USA, IranComments Off on As Trump Tweets Threats, Warnings of His Team ‘Working in Lock Step to Lay Groundwork’ for War With Iran

NOVANEWS

“Thanks to WikiLeaks, it has been possible to reveal the true face of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq, the identities of Guantanamo detainees , the scandals and embarrassing diplomatic deals contained in 251,287 U.S. diplomacy cables, such as pressure from the U.S. to neutralize Italian prosecutors investigating the extraordinary rendition of the Milan cleric, Abu Omar,” Maurizi writes. (Photo: Wikileaks)

Silenced and cut off from the outside world, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in London for the last six years with no access to sunlight, fresh air, or proper medical treatment. Furthermore, last March President Lenin Moreno’s Ecuadorian government cut his access to the internet, phone calls and even visitors and journalists. For a man who has already been confined to the embassy for so long, these restrictions are particularly harsh.

“Like its work or not, WikiLeaks is an independent media organization that doesn’t have to rely on traditional media to publish its scoops. Indeed it was founded to bypass the legal qualms traditional media may have about publishing classified information.”

I began working as one of WikiLeaks’ media partners in 2009, before Assange and WikiLeaks published such bombshells as the “Collateral Murder” video. Over the last nine years, I have partnered with WikiLeaks on behalf of my newspaper, the Italian daily La Repubblica to work on the Podesta emails and many of its other secret files, except for those that WikiLeaks released without media partners: the DNC emails, the Saudi Cables, Turkey’s ruling party emails, the Hacking Team documents, the Collateral Murder video and the Brennan emails.

Like its work or not, WikiLeaks is an independent media organization that doesn’t have to rely on traditional media to publish its scoops. Indeed it was founded to bypass the legal qualms traditional media may have about publishing classified information.

With its 5.5 million followers on Twitter, WikiLeaks has a huge social media presence that gives its work immediate impact. But WikiLeaks has published most of its revelations in collaboration with a number of media partners.

For instance, I was a partner in the publication of the emails of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, which were published by WikiLeaks shortly after the infamous Access Hollywood video revealed candidate Donald Trump making rude remarks about women.

Many media outlets continue to report that the Podesta emails were released only minutes after the Access Hollywood video aired, hinting at some sort of coordination between WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. In a indictment issued last Friday, Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, charged 12 officers of the Russian military intelligence service, GRU, for having allegedly hacked both the DNC and Podesta emails and allegedly passed them on to WikiLeaks for publication.

I have no idea who WikiLeaks’ sources were for the Podesta emails: the whole concept of WikiLeaks is based on the submission of secret or otherwise restricted documents by anonymous sources. Assange said numerous times that his source for the Clinton emails was not the Russian government nor a state party.

As I worked on the Podesta emails, I do know that their publication was not a last-second decision. I had been alerted the day before, and their staggered release was a choice WikiLeaks made after the organization was harshly criticized by mainstream media for publishing the DNC documents all at once. This time the emails would trickle out to make them easier for the public to digest. But that was criticized too by the U.S. media and the Democrats as an attempt to leave Clinton bleeding a few weeks before the elections.

Ready to Release Trump Documents

I was also a witness when WikiLeaks received four documents about Trump’s business at a certain point during the campaign and media partners were asked to help verify the documents to determine if they should be published. The WikiLeaks team had already prepared a placeholder graphic for a possible release on Trump: a caricature of Trump and his characteristic hairstyle. Unfortunately, we found that the documents had already been made public.

Over the last nine years of my work in partnership with WikiLeaks on behalf of first the Italian newsmagazine L’Espresso and then La Repubblica, I have spent many hours talking to Assange and his staff, maintaining weekly contact with them. Looking back, I realize that in all those years, I only met Assange as a free man once. That was in September 2010: he had just left Sweden to meet me and other journalists in Berlin after the publication of the Afghan War Logs. At that time, I didn’t realize so many years would pass without seeing him free again.

He is one of the most demonized men on the planet. “We are in the business of crucifixion,” he told me several months ago, before Ecuador cut his social contacts. Indeed he has been crucified for whatever he has done: he talked to the press? He is a narcissist. He didn’t talk to the press? He wants to fuel his image as an international mystery man. He is a complicated human being, but he is neither a hard man nor the imperious, James Bond-style villain depicted by newspapers. He can be warm, with a sharp sense of humor, and he is definitely brilliant and bold enough to publish exceptionally risky documents.

The Full Force of the State

WikiLeaks is rather unique from many standpoints. As a media organization publishing exclusively secret or otherwise restricted documents on “invisible powers,” such as intelligence agencies, which citizens do not normally perceive as directly relevant to their lives, there is little doubt that WikiLeaks has the full force of the State against it. It is probably the only Western media organization to have been under continuous investigation by the U.S. authorities – and probably others—since 2010, and it is definitely the only one whose editor is arbitrarily detained in the heart of Europe.

“Assange has always been the person coordinating WikiLeaks publication activities, making the editorial choices, deciding how to present the revelations to the public—just like any editor of traditional media. He and his organization are far from perfect: they have made mistakes and questionable choices, but it is a matter of fact that they have revealed very important information in the public interest.”

Whenever I say that Assange is the only editor arbitrarily detained in Europe, some object that he isn’t detained, or that he isn’t an editor at all. But that he is arbitrarily detained is the opinion of the United Nations’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, whose decisions are considered authoritative by the European Court of Human Rights. The UK government has always rejected the UN body’s decision on Assange, and even tried to appeal it. Since losing this appeal, the UK authorities have continued to ignore the decision and apparently no one else has anything to say about it.

Many argue that Assange is not detained, but rather is in a state of “self-imposed exile,” since he could leave the embassy at any time. He could, if he wanted to, walk out and be arrested by the UK authorities, on now flimsy skipping bail conditionsafter Sweden dropped its investigation against him, and he’d face the risk of extradition to the United States. Last year the former head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, attacked him and his organization ferociously, calling WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service.” The current Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has declared that arresting him is a priority.

Assange’s lawyers believe a grand jury in the state of Virginia has likely rendered a sealed indictment against him. Theoretically he is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution, which protects publication of stolen documents, something that major media does routinely. However, through the last years we have seen many attempts by the U.S. authorities to claim WikiLeaks and Assange have no First Amendment righrts.

Curiously, those critics who insist he is in a form of self-imposed exile or confinement seem to forget that Assange has attempted all sorts of legal routes to challenge his detention. I have never heard of someone imposing exile on himself while at the same time attempting various legal means to put an end to it.

Assange’s latest appeal to the Westminster Magistrates’ Court was dismissed last February by the British judge Emma Arbuthnot, in a ruling indicating that for UK Justice it is perfectly fine for an individual to remain confined to a tiny building for almost six years with no access to sunlight, fresh air or proper medical treatment. “I do not find that Mr. Assange’s stay in the Embassy is inappropriate, unjust, unpredictable, unreasonable, unnecessary or disproportionate”, concluded Arbuthnot with no British irony.

As far as the concept of “editor” goes, I can refer to my own experience, describing what I have seen on my end: Assange has always been the person coordinating WikiLeaks publication activities, making the editorial choices, deciding how to present the revelations to the public—just like any editor of traditional media. He and his organization are far from perfect: they have made mistakes and questionable choices, but it is a matter of fact that they have revealed very important information in the public interest.

Journalism and Beyond

Thanks to WikiLeaks, it has been possible to reveal the true face of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq (Afghan War Logs, Iraq War Logs Files and Collateral Murder), the identities of Guantanamo detainees (Gitmo Files), the scandals and embarrassing diplomatic deals contained in 251,287 U.S. diplomacy cables, such as pressure from the U.S. to neutralize Italian prosecutors investigating the extraordinary rendition of the Milan cleric, Abu Omar (Cablegate).

It has been possible to reveal the inner workings of the U.S. private intelligence firm Stratfor (GIFiles) and the National Security Agency intercepts on German, French, Italian and Japanese leaders, including intercepts of the controversial, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (NSA World Spying Files). WikiLeaks also revealed EU operations to stop migrants and refugees (EU Military Ops Against Refugee Flow Files), and the CIA cyber weapons (Vault 7 Files). Its Tunisia Files contributed to the uprising there that set off the so-called Arab Spring. WikiLeaks has also released a cache of Spy Files from Russia.

All this valuable information has been made available to the world by WikiLeaks completely free of charge, so that once in the public domain, journalists, activists, scholars and citizens can access it directly worldwide, without needing media organizations or journalists to access the original files and make informed choices.

This publication strategy has worked: the exiled Islanders from the Chagos Archipelago for example have been using the U.S. diplomacy cables in court to support their struggle to return to the Chagos Islands, while a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, used the cables to support his case at the European Court of Human Rights against his extraordinary rendition.

As WikiLeaks sees it, publishing information in the public interest is an act that involves journalism, but also goes beyond journalism. That is why after partnering with media organizations, WikiLeaks makes the files publicly available so that everyone can access and use them.

Assange and his team pioneered a model so effective that it has been copied by many. They started a platform for anonymous submission of secret or otherwise restricted documents, a concept which has since been adopted by almost all major media outlets. They also established cross-jurisdictional collaborative reporting, now a model for major organizations like the Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which published notable revelations like the Panama Papers.

Risk

Throughout the last nine years, I have seen Assange and his staff take enormous risks. “They run towards the risks everyone else runs away from,” Edward Snowden once told me in an interview. That means they take risks corporate media won’t take. At the end of the day corporate media are corporations: many decide they can afford only limited legal risks. As for the extralegal risks, few traditional editors and journalists are eager to end up confined to an embassy for six years.

We have seen what happened to Snowden when he was abandoned in Hong Kong: it took Assange’s close adviser, Wikileaks journalist Sarah Harrison, and the WikiLeaks’ staff to help him seek asylum. Although the newspapers that had obtained the Snowden files could have exerted enormous contractual power if they had wanted to broker an agreement with the U.S. government to protect Snowden, none of them did. As the American science fiction author Bruce Sterling put it: “It’s incredible to me that, among the eight zillion civil society groups on the planet that hate and fear spooks and police spies, not one of them could offer Snowden one shred of practical help, except for Wikileaks.”

From the very beginning, I have witnessed the virulent attacks against Assange and his staff and the dramatic failure of mainstream and non-mainstream journalists to seek factual information on the Swedish case by means of FOIA or other investigative tools. In the course of these last seven years, no media has tried to access the full file on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

It took an Italian journalist to litigate a FOIA in Sweden and in the UK because no international or local journalist had done so. While my FOIA litigation unearthed some suspicious facts (like the deletion of many crucial emails written and received by the British lawyer who had handled the Assange case for the Crown Prosecution Service – a deletion for which the UK authorities have provided no explanation) there has been no follow-up by any international or British media.

The Kremlin’s Useful Idiots?

Recently, The Guardian said, “Assange has a longstanding relationship with Russia Today. He has regularly appeared in interviews with the Russian broadcaster and hosted a program on RT in 2012.” In reality the broadcasting license for that program, known as “The World Tomorrow”, was acquired by my newsgroup as well, which publishes La Repubblica and l’Espresso. As far as I know, that program was not the product of any unique collaboration between WikiLeaks and RT.

While it is true that Assange and his staff have appeared on the Russian channel numerous times, I have only heard of one instance in which RT was a partner with WikiLeaks in the publication of secret files: the “Spy Files”, a series about brochures on private companies selling surveillance technologies. When WikiLeaks partners with traditional media, the partners know each other, they share the findings and the workload. Based on what I have observed, RT has never been part of this process, though it is true that RT quickly jumps on whatever WikiLeaks publishes, running articles on WikiLeaks publications based on the organization’s press releases and reporting on everything on the WikiLeaks front.

Russia perceives Assange as a sort of Western dissident. The country definitely loves the idea of “Western dissidents” and is happy to stick a finger in the eyes of the West by assuring wide coverage for Assange and his organization. Russia media highlights the contradictions in Western democracies which, while preaching aggressive journalism and the protection of journalistic sources, have instead put Chelsea Manning in prison, charged Snowden, investigated WikiLeaks for the last eight years and has kept its editor arbitrarily detained with no end in sight.

WikiLeaks has been accused of being the Kremlin’s useful idiot or its laundromat, or even a front for Russian intelligence. These kinds of allegations have been spread by the media with no solid evidence, always quoting anonymous intelligence officials who have an obvious interest in destroying WikiLeaks’ reputation. To protect himself and his organization, Assange has always avoided revealing the inner workings of WikiLeaks so as to not expose its resources and vulnerabilities to powerful entities like the CIA, which perceive WikiLeaks as an existential threat to themselves.

This approach has helped project an allure of mystery and menace which has been used by many media outlets to fuel a vitriolic campaign against Assange and WikiLeaks as James Bond-style villains with something dark to hide. Had Assange and his team ever lifted the veil and allowed the public to see the inner workings of WikiLeaks, public opinion would have perceived what is really behind it: a willingness to take the heat even in the face of very powerful entities.

No one can say how it will end for Assange and his team: if they end up in jail in the United States, it will be the first time that an editor and a media organization are imprisoned in the U.S. for their work, at least not since John Peter Zenger in Colonial America. As the icon of whistleblowers, Daniel Ellsberg, put it: “Under Trump, he may well be the first journalist in this country to be indicted.” There is a deafening silence on the impact of such a scenario on the freedom of the press and on the human rights of Assange and his staff.

Posted in MediaComments Off on Inside WikiLeaks: Working With the Publisher That Changed the World

NOVANEWS

“The Trump administration, committed to neither secularism nor freedom within the content of its own governance, is transparently adopting the form of ‘supporting Iranian voices’ for ends that cannot be genuine.”

“That Pompeo sounds like an acolyte of the Islamic Republic is of great importance to the integrity of his support for Iranian voices. It is probably even more significant than his disdain for Islam, the faith to which millions of Iranians deeply adhere even if they wish religion would stay out of politics. How can a man like Pompeo advocate for secularism?” Batmanghelidj writes. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/cc)

In his brief stint as CIA director, Mike Pompeo brought God to Langley. At least that’s how it felt it to many in the intelligence community. According to Foreign Policy, Pompeo attended “weekly Bible studies held in government buildings, referenced God and Christianity repeatedly in his first all-hands speech” and planned to start “a chaplaincy for the CIA campus like the military has.” When challenged on these matters, a CIA spokesperson countered, “Director Pompeo is a man of faith…The idea that he should not practice his faith because he is Director of CIA is absurd.”

This Sunday, Secretary of State Pompeo will give an address in “support of Iranian voices” at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi, California as part of outreach to the Iranian-American community. In a background briefing on Thursday, a senior State Department official previewed Pompeo’s message. Reflecting the upcoming anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Pompeo will “survey the last 40 years of stealing from the Iranian people, the terrorism they have committed around the region, the brutal repression at home.” He will also expose “the corruption of the regime” and highlight “religious persecution.” These issues Pompeo will raise are not fictions, but the sincerity of his support for activism may be.

As Politico’s Nahal Toosi has written, the speech is part of a wider Trump administration policy, which Pompeo defined in May by issuing “12 demands of Iran’s clerical leaders, a list so broad that some analysts say it amounts to a call for regime change.” As unrest has gripped Iran, the administration “increased its use of social media targeting Iranians…to cheer on protests in Iran, highlight the government’s economic mismanagement and, especially lately, challenge its abuse of human rights.”

The Lure of Regime Change

During Thursday’s background briefing, the New Yorker’s Robin Wright asked specifically about the connection between the list of demands and any goals of regime change. The senior state department official countered that “nobody at the time thought that those 12 demands were a proxy for regime change” and explained that “the length of the list is simply a scope of the malign behavior of Iran.” The administration has been reluctant to directly disavow the idea of regime change.

For many Iranian-Americans who yearn to see an end to the Islamic Republic, the strong political messaging from Pompeo and the wider Trump administration, particularly the avowed support for protests in Iran, has galvanized a sense that regime change is achievable. As Mariam Memarsadeghi, a co-founder of Tavaana, an organization that helps support civil-society capacity-building in Iran and receives State Department funding, has tweeted, “I’m a never-Trumper, but believe in admin’s Iran approach.” In further indication of what that approach might be, Memarsadeghi has written that “the Islamic Republic must fall.”

What should replace the Islamic Republic is a question that few regime-change proponents have been able to answer in any real detail. But, as relayed by Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s deposed Shah, most Iranian-Americans who seek political change in Iran can agree that the country should be “a secular, parliamentary democracy.” To this end, Pahlavi notes, it is “not the form that matters, it’s the content” and that the “final form has to be decided by the people.”

But the insistence on seeing Iran become secular does clearly indicate a concern for form. After all, the Islamic Republic is structured with the authority of clerical leadership. In Memarsadeghi’s view, “Khomeinist totalitarianism is a totalitarianism rooted in Islam.”

Pompeo’s Religious Politics

Importantly, this is a view that Pompeo shares, not only because of his long-standing animosity towards Iran, but also because of his more specific beliefs about Islam. The former Kansas congressman once told his constituents in Wichita, “The threat to America is from people who deeply believe that Islam is the way and the light and the only answer.” In this conception, if totalitarianism or terrorism is the content of the Iranian policy, then the Islamic Republic is its enabling form.

But the role of secularism as a cornerstone of regime-change advocacy makes Pompeo an unlikely ally. Whatever the content of Pompeo’s own political and governmental leadership, its form is anything but secular. This is a man who has proclaimed that “to worship our Lord and celebrate our nation at the same place is not only our right, it is our duty” and has described politics as a “a never-ending struggle…until the rapture.”

A messianic view of politics is something Pompeo shares with many figures in Iran. Though his own politics were generally more juridical than mystical, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini once exclaimed, “We place this revolution into the hands of the Mahdi: if it pleases God, let this revolution be the first step toward the appearance of The One Whom God Has Preserved, and let it pave the way for his arrival!”

That Pompeo sounds like an acolyte of the Islamic Republic is of great importance to the integrity of his support for Iranian voices. It is probably even more significant than his disdain for Islam, the faith to which millions of Iranians deeply adhere even if they wish religion would stay out of politics. How can a man like Pompeo advocate for secularism?

This question points to something of a double bind for Iranian-Americans who invite a closer dialogue with the administration on Iran’s political future. As they push for a secular Iran, they must decide whether the form of Pompeo’s beliefs, as well as those of other administration officials and Republican lawmakers, is compatible with their own advocacy, or whether content can actually overcome form.

Form v. Content

If form takes precedence, then the Iranian-American activist cannot align with this administration, which has sought to bring religious dogma into American political institutions. After all, if there is a body in Iran in which a religious form is responsible for unjust content, it is the judiciary, which enforces (and bends) the rule of law with an ideological outlook. But if proponents of regime change are to point to the judiciary to explain why secularism needs to be a cornerstone of their advocacy, they cannot in good conscience align with Pompeo. When the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2013, Pompeo released a statement declaring, “I am deeply saddened by the Supreme Court’s ruling that imposes legalized gay marriage…It is a shocking abuse of power. It is wrong. I will continue to fight to protect our most sacred institutions.” He was no doubt influenced by his participation in gatherings such as the U.S. Capitol Bible Study of Pastor Ralph Drollinger, who prepared a reading of the Book of Leviticus for members of Congress, including Pompeo, in the lead-up to the court’s deliberation, and which began with this introduction:

Surrounding the prohibited Hebrews were the permissive Canaanites who practiced same-sex marriage. Do you know any Canaanites today? How about Jewish folks? That illustrates the huge error of every society that has allowed sexual predilection to determine marriage privilege… Many are the simpletons who advocate that “love” should be the sole basis for sanctioning marriage rights. But if “love” is the reason for marriage then how can our courts deny matrimony to a petitioner who loves her cat?

Perhaps the Iranian-American proponents of regime change can cast aside these issues on the basis that content takes precedence. In this assessment, Pompeo is advocating a sound policy on Iran, so his personal beliefs do not matter. But to assert that Pompeo is able to lead despite his personal beliefs is to concede that secularism in governance is really an institutional matter, not an ideological one. As I recently outlined in Bloomberg Opinion, aside from the judiciary, most of the relevant institutions in Iran responsible for routine state failures—chronic unemployment, environmental degradation, rampant corruption—are essentially secular spaces, neither run by religious leaders nor operated in accordance to religious prescriptions. In the American context, Pompeo’s bible study can remain a personal matter precisely because institutions create spaces that accommodate and constrain the non-secular. But as a result, the failures of the American government to meet the needs of its people, just as in Iran, ought to be attributed to the poorly functioning bureaucracies—institutions that will require slow and grinding reform even if Iran’s republic ceases to be Islamic.

Ahead of Sunday’s speech, it is dismaying to see so little critical engagement of these issues within the Iranian-American community itself. The Trump administration, committed to neither secularism nor freedom within the content of its own governance, is transparently adopting the form of “supporting Iranian voices” for ends that cannot be genuine. To adapt a revolutionary slogan about Iran being beholden to neither East nor West, the Iranian-American community must declare, “Neither Trump nor Khamenei: independent advocacy.” Until then, the calls for secularism and democracy in Iran will continue to be tainted by those to whom Iranian-Americans look for leadership.

Posted in USA, IranComments Off on Pompeo, Religion, and Regime Change in Iran

NOVANEWS

New laws make Israeli apartheid official

For “Friends of Israel” read “Friends of Racism”

Israel is now a self-defined apartheid state. It has been obvious since Herzl and the Zionist Congress of 1905 that the project to create a new Israel for the Jewish people by displacing the people of Palestine was a racist endeavour. Now it’s official. The “nationality” laws just passed by the Knesset reveal the sheer wickedness.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity under international convention. The Israeli regime doesn’t care; but politicians in the UK, EU and US should.

They should also deal firmly with it.

Here’s the situation, according to the recently passed laws:

1. The State of Israela) Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people in which the state of Israel was established.
b) The state of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, in which it actualises its natural, religious and historical right for self-determination.
c) The actualisation of the right of national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.

2. National symbols of the State of Israela) The name of the state is Israel.
b) The flag of the state is white, two blue stripes near the edges, and a blue Star of David in the centre.
c) The symbol of the state is the Menorah with seven branches, olive leaves on each side, and the word Israel at the bottom.
d) The national anthem of the state is “Hatikvah”
e) [Further] details concerning the issue of state symbols will be determined by law.

3. [The] unified and complete [city of] Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

4. The language of the State of Israela) Hebrew is the language of the state.
b) The Arabic language has a special status in the state; the regulation of the Arab language in state institutions or when facing them will be regulated by law.
c) This clause does not change the statues given to the Arabic language before the basic law was created.

5. The state will be open to Jewish immigration and to the gathering of the exiled.

6. The Diasporaa) The state will labour to ensure the safety of sons of the Jewish people and its citizens who are in trouble and captivity due to their Jewishness or their citizenship.
b) The state will act to preserve the cultural, historical and religious legacy of the Jewish people among the Jewish diaspora.

7. The state views Jewish settlement as a national value and will labour to encourage and promote its establishment and development.

8. The Hebrew calendar is the official calendar of the state and alongside it the Julian calendar will serve as an official calendar. The usage of the Hebrew calendar and of the Julian calendar will be determined by law.

9. National Holidaysa) Independence Day is the official holiday of the state.
b) The Memorial Day for those who fell in the wars of Israel and the Memorial Day for the holocaust and heroism are official memorial days of the state.

10. Saturday and the Jewish Holidays are the official days of rest in the state. Those who are not Jewish have the right to honour their days of rest and their holidays. Details concerning these matters will be determined by law.

11. This Basic Law may not be altered except by a Basic Law that gained the approval of the majority of the Knesset members.

Laws 1 (a), (b) and (c) are the most objectionable. Note that Israel still doesn’t define its borders or even mention them. The land it has claimed is also the historical homeland of other peoples who still live there despite attempts by Jewish terror militias and discriminatory laws to evict them.

“The actualization of the right of national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people,” says the new law, making it clear that national rights are denied to Palestinians still living in their Palestinian homeland swallowed up by the ever-expanding Israel project. This law is also designed to guarantee Israeli Jews continued domination if and when the regime completes its illegal annexation of the Palestinian West Bank.

The Israeli regime has shot itself in the foot with one of its own nasty, expanding bullets. The pretense to democracy and the claim to share Western values are exposed as a sickening hoax… Friends, stooges and pimps of the self-declared apartheid state now have nowhere to hide their shameful faces.

There can no longer be any doubt about the regime’s racist character even among to those who until now have admired and supported it. And the old myth about Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East and sharing Western values looks more ludicrous than ever.

Law 3 has no legal foundation. Under international law East Jerusalem, including the Old City, is Palestinian.

Law 5 invites Jews from around the world, including those with no ancestral links to the Holy Land, to come and live in Israel while still denying the true indigenous people, the Palestinians displaced at gunpoint, the right to return to their homes.

Law 7 gives Jewish settlements the green light with no boundaries, again defying international law.

And, to rub salt into new and old wounds, the Arabic language is downgraded.

The Israeli regime has shot itself in the foot with one of its own nasty, expanding bullets. The pretense to democracy and the claim to share Western values are exposed as a sickening hoax. Its spiteful Jews-only fanaticism sacrifices what little support it had. Friends, stooges and pimps of the self-declared apartheid state now have nowhere to hide their shameful faces.

Civil society across nations has been handed a game-changing opportunity to reduce the evil in this world.

NOVANEWS

Creeping annexation of the West Bank and wanton cruelty in Gaza: Israel’s March of Folly

One can look at events in Gaza through the left or through the right eye. One can condemn them as inhuman, cruel and mistaken, or justify them as necessary and unavoidable.

But there is one adjective that is beyond question: They are stupid.

If the late Barbara Tuchman were still alive, she might be tempted to add another chapter to her groundbreaking opus, The March of Folly: a chapter titled “Eyeless in Gaza”.

The latest episode in this epic started a few months ago, when independent activists in the Gaza Strip called for a march to the Israeli border, which Hamas supported. It was called “The Great March of Return”, a symbolic gesture for the more than a million Arab residents who fled or were evicted from their homes in the land that became the State of Israel.

The Israeli authorities pretended to take this seriously. A frightening picture was painted for the Israeli public: 1.8 million Arabs, men, women and children, would throw themselves on the border fence, break through in many places, and storm Israel’s cities and villages. Terrifying.

Sharpshooters vs unarmed protesters

Israeli sharpshooters were posted along the border and ordered to shoot anyone who looked like a “ringleader”. On several succeeding Fridays (the weekly Muslim holy day) more than 150 unarmed protesters, including many children, were shot dead, and many hundreds more severely wounded by gunfire, apart from those hurt by tear gas.

The Israeli argument was that the victims were shot while trying to “storm the fences”. Actually, not a single such attempt was photographed, though hundreds of photographers were posted on both sides of the fence.

Facing a world-wide protest, the army changed its orders and now only rarely kills unarmed protesters. The Palestinians also changed their tactics: the main effort now is to fly children’s kites with burning tails and set Israeli fields near the Strip on fire.

Since the wind almost always blows from the West to the East, that is an easy way to hurt Israel. Children can do it, and do. Now the minister of education demands that the air force bomb the children. The chief of staff refuses, arguing that this is “against the values of the Israeli army”.

At present, half of our newspapers and TV newscasts are concerned with Gaza. Everybody seems to agree that sooner or later a fully-fledged war will break out there.

“A picture of total misery”

The main feature of this exercise is its utter stupidity.

Every military action must have a political aim. As the German military thinker, Carl von Clausewitz, famously said: “War is but a continuation of politics by other means.”

The Strip is 41 km long and 6 to 12 km wide. It is one of the most overcrowded places on earth. Nominally it belongs to the largely theoretical State of Palestine, like the West Bank, which is Israeli occupied. The Strip is in fact governed by the radical Muslim Hamas party.

In the past, masses of Palestinian workers from Gaza streamed into Israel every day. But since Hamas assumed power in the Strip, the Israeli government has imposed an almost total blockade on land and sea. The Egyptian dictatorship, a close ally of Israel and a deadly enemy of radical Islam, cooperates with Israel.

So what does Israel want? The preferred solution is to sink the entire Strip and its population into the sea. Failing that, what can be done?

The last thing Israel wants is to annex the Strip with its huge population, which cannot be driven out. Also, Israel does not want to put up settlements in the Strip (the few which were set up were withdrawn by Ariel Sharon, who thought that it was not worthwhile to keep and defend them).

The real policy is to make life in Gaza so miserable, that the Gazans themselves will rise and throw the Hamas authorities out. With this in mind, the water supply is reduced to two hours a day, electricity the same. Employment hovers around 50 per cent, wages beneath the minimum. It is a picture of total misery.

Since everything that reaches Gaza must come through Israel (or Egypt), supplies are often cut off completely for days as “punishment”.

Alas, history shows that such methods seldom succeed. They only deepen the enmity. So what can be done?

Defiance of commonsense

The answer is incredibly simple: sit down, talk and come to an agreement.

Yes, but how can you sit down with a mortal enemy, whose official ideology totally rejects a Jewish state?

Islam, which (like every religion) has an answer to everything, recognises something called a hudna, which is a lasting armistice. This can go on for many decades and is (religiously) kept.

For several years now, Hamas has been almost openly hinting that it is ready for a long hudna. Egypt has volunteered to mediate. Our government has totally ignored the offer. A hudna with the enemy? Out of the question! God forbid! Would be terribly unpopular politically!

But it would be the sensible thing to do. Stop all hostile acts from both sides, say for 50 years. Abolish the blockade. Build a real harbour in Gaza city. Allow free trade under some kind of military inspection. Same for an airport. Allow workers to find employment in Israel, instead of importing workers from China and Romania.Turn Gaza into a second Singapore. Allow free travel between Gaza and the West Bank by a bridge or an exterritorial highway. Help to restore unity between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

I hear this many times, and always wonder about the stupidity of people who repeat this.

How does a group of a few hundred thousand “destroy” one of the world’s most heavily armed states, a state that possesses nuclear bombs and submarines to deliver them? How? With kites?

The Israeli government wants to annex the West Bank. It wants to get the Arab population out, and replace them with Jewish settlers. It conducts this policy slowly, cautiously, but consistently.

Both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin pay us homage, the world’s fascist dictators and liberal presidents come to visit. How can Hamas pose a mortal danger?

Why doesn’t Hamas stop hostilities by itself? Hamas has competitors, which are even more radical. It does not dare to show any sign of weakness.

Some decades ago the Arab world, at the initiative of Saudi Arabia, offered Israel peace under several conditions, all of them acceptable. Successive Israel governments have not only not accepted it, they have ignored it altogether.

There was some logic in this. The Israeli government wants to annex the West Bank. It wants to get the Arab population out, and replace them with Jewish settlers. It conducts this policy slowly, cautiously, but consistently.

It is a cruel policy, a detestable policy, yet it has some logic in it. If you really want to achieve this abominable aim, the methods may be adequate. But this does not apply to the Gaza Strip, which no one wants to annex. There, the methods are sheer folly.

This does not mean that the overall Israeli policy towards the Palestinians is any more wise. It is not.

Binyamin Netanyahu and his hand-picked stupid ministers have no policy. Or so it seems. In fact they do have an undeclared one: creeping annexation of the West Bank.

This is now going on at a quicker pace than before. The daily news gives the impression that the entire government machine is now concentrating on this project.

This will lead directly to an apartheid-style state, where a large Jewish minority will dominate an Arab majority.

For how long? One generation? Two? Three?

It has been said that a clever person is able to extricate himself from a trap into which a wise person would not have fallen in the first place.

Stupid people do not extricate themselves. They are not even aware of the trap.

NOVANEWS

The Supreme Court of Israel has denied a petition to unseal records under a certificate of state immunity. The petition alleged that the State of Israel uses Pegasus and similar spyware to monitor journalists and human rights activists.

On 10 June 2018 Judge Neal Hendel said that once a certificate of immunity is issued, it cannot be repealed. Therefore, it is impossible for criminal case defendants in Israel to expose whether they have been targeted for surveillance by Pegasus or its sister spyware, Da Vinci.

Israel’s chief prosecutor reported in the first week of July that the state is indicting a former employee of the cyber-arms dealer, NSO Group, for trying to sell the notorious Pegasus spyware for $50 million over the dark net. In a press release, cited by all major media, he said that if such software leaked to the wrong hands, it would pose severe damage to Israel’s security. At the same time, all Israel news outlets reported that certain governments who legally purchased the spyware had actually used it against innocent people, or outside the permitted usages delineated in the contracts. Such contracts must be approved by the Israeli government, even though NSO is a commercial business. Countries where such violations occurred were Panama, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. However, no one so far has ever challenged Israel’s own use of Pegasus and its ilk, until the Lory Shem Tov trial that ended up in Neal Hendel’s court.

In February 2017, the Tel Aviv cyber police arrested around 15 reporters and activists as well as five lawyers. An indictment was filed against two reporters, Lory Shem Tov being the main defendant, and one of her lawyers. The indictment alleges a conspiracy to defame and ridicule the Israeli judiciary and to sabotage the works of government social workers by way of publishing articles portraying the judge and social workers in a demeaning way, laced with profanities and sexually derogative comments. Lory Shem Tov is still in detention 16 months later. During the trial the prosecutors filed a certificate of immunity in relation to evidence collected between November 2015 and June 2016 by covertly planting cameras, microphones and spyware in her bedroom, computer and cellular phones.

Shem Tov’s co defendants filed a motion to unseal the information generated from the snooping police activity, claiming that if police knew the insulting articles were published from her home, then they should be acquitted, as there appears to be no conspiracy. They also claimed that if the police knew in real time that she was publishing her articles from home, then by arresting her in November 2015, they could have saved all the other 70 complainants who were insulted until the day of arrest in 2017. It was argued that this embarrassment, and possible exposure of the state to lawsuits by the 70 complainants for not preventing the publishing activities in time, was the real reason for issuing the certificate of immunity.

Judge Abraham Haiman of the Tel Aviv District Court disagreed and issued an order confirming the need for sealing the police hacking records due to “public interest”. At the Supreme Court Judge Hendel confirmed the decision was indeed unappealable.

Lawyers for the defendants and other privacy activists are upset.

It is simply impossible to uncover the huge extent of surveillance by Israel against its own citizens, because to date no motion to unseal similar certificates of immunity has been successful. The courts of Israel automatically dismiss all these motions. There is no data collected, and there is no way to overcome the judicial reluctance to examine police methods and targets, said one of the lawyers in the case. It is ironic that now, when the state is indicting the former employee of NSO, it is citing the complaints made overseas against rogue and dictatorial regimes, but then who approved these sales to begin with, if not the government of Israel?

Why is Israel now pretending to be so morally superior compared to Panama,and Mexico, when it spies on its own people on a regular basis?

Posted in ZIO-NAZIComments Off on Israel using Pegasus spyware to eavesdrop on its own citizens

NOVANEWS

In Excessive Use of Force, Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian Civilian and Wound Another One in Al-Dahisha Refugee Camp, South of Bethlehem

Killed by the Nazi regime

On Monday, 23 July 2018, in new crime of excessive use of lethal force against Palestinian civilians, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian civilian and wounded another one in al-Dahish refugee camp, south of Bethlehem. This crime and other willful killings lately committed by the Israeli forces prove that the Israeli forces deliberately aiming at dropping the highest number of victims among Palestinian civilians. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns this crime and holds the Israeli government responsible for the tense atmosphere in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). PCHR also calls upon the International Community to take its legal and moral responsibility and intervene in order to put an end to the Israeli crimes against Palestinians and provide protection for them.

According to PCHR’s investigations and eyewitnesses’ statement, at approximately 03:00 on Monday, a group of “Mista’arvim” undercover units dressed like Palestinian civilians sneaked into al-Dahish refugee camp, south of Bethlehem, to carry out an arrest mission. After that, Israeli forces backed by 8 military vehicles moved into the camp from all its entrances. The Israeli military vehicles then patrolled al-Fineeq Street and al-Salam, al-Jarishah, al-Walijah, al-Ja’afrah, al-Hawouz, and al-Dahiyah neighborhoods. The Israeli soldiers raided and topped roofs of dozens of houses and buildings, raided many shops after blowing up their doors and damaged their contents. Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinian young men gathered and threw stones and Molotov Cocktails at the Israeli soldiers, who heavily fired live and rubber bullets and tear gas canisters at them. At approximately 14:30, the confrontations, in which live bullets were used against protesters, escalated and extended to the camp’s main entrance. As a result, Arkan Thaier Helmi Mizher (15) was hit with a live bullet that penetrated his heart and exited his back. Arkan sustained serious wounds and was then taken to al-Hussain Hospital in Beit Jalah, where his death was announced. Moreover, another civilian was hit with a live bullet to the left foot and doctors classified his wounds as moderate. On the same day morning, the Israeli forces arrested 3 civilians and then withdrew. The Israeli forces claimed that they opened an investigation into the death circumstances of the abovementioned child.

PCHR follows up with deep concern the deteriorating situation in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and is concerned over the use of lethal force against unarmed civilians participating in peaceful protests, violating the international humanitarian law standards. PCHR hereby condemns the Israeli forces’ use of excessive, disproportionate and lethal force against the protestors. PCHR calls upon the international community and UN bodies to stop the Israeli escalating crimes and violations and work on providing international protection for Palestinians in the oPt. PCHR also reiterates its call upon the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their obligations under Article 1; i.e., to respect and ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances and their obligations under Article 146 to prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and Protocol (I) Additional to the Geneva Conventions regarding the guarantee of Palestinian civilians’ right to protection in the oPt.